Maigret's Prose

“The memories reached him in waves, because this was another year when spring was early, and that morning he had left home without his overcoat. He felt as light as the sparkling air. The colors of the shops, the food stalls, the women’s dresses were all bright and cheerful.

“He was not thinking of anything in particular, just a few disconnected little thoughts.”

— Georges Simenon, Maigret’s Pickpocket

I always enjoy the quotidian aspects of the Maigret novels — the specificity of weather, the satisfaction of meals, the small vivid impressions — as much as I do the crime stories. He’s one of those characters who wanders around in your mind, knocking out his pipe, after the story ends.

The Secret of Nostalgia

The simple secret to nostalgia for the past is that we know how things turn out, a comfort that the present reality — the only reality — never gives us. 

It's like a favorite movie we can watch again and again.

Meteorological Theatricality

Torrents, floods, flashes, booms. 

A simple spring rain can be 

quite the drama queen.

Fountains and Feathers

Starlings splash wildly,

improvising a fountain,

washing off winter.

A Reassuring Glow

The soft yellow cones

of the streetlights in the haze

welcome weary eyes.

The Devil's in the Downward Dog

So apparently “anti-yoga Republican” is a thing now.

The satanic sin of stretching, I guess.

The Remembered Taste of Grape Soda

Doing Photoshop art upstairs, I had a sudden urge to watch Father Knows Best, and wondered why. Not really a great show, after all. 

Then I realized it may have been because I was drinking a grape soda, something I’ve tasted very rarely since early childhood. 

I think it took me back to living with my grandparents in those earliest years, with that warm-as-a-blanket sense of absolute security that never comes again. 

I used to watch that TV show with them on CBS Monday nights, often drinking a bottle of grape soda from a six pack that my grandmother would buy at the neighborhood grocery store just down the block.